Forward unto Death
Chapter 3
-Begin transmission
Apologies for the delay, but it took time to recover what was left from the wreckage of Reach. However, I managed to piece together the attached mission recording for filing purposes, as well as for documentation as to what happened on the ground leading up to the destruction of Reach.
-Begin mission recording
Kain reloaded his DMR and pistols on the Falcon as Carter, Jorge, and himself were being air-lifted over to the relay outpost to assist Kat and Emile. Carter was currently on the com with Kat for an update on the relay; apparently the Covenant had flash-fused the door, keeping it from shutting. Before being picked up by the Falcon, Kain had driven the flatbed truck into Covenant groups, quite literally running some over, as Carter and Jorge shot the others until they were called off to assist a downed Pelican and the troops that were in it. After fending off an assault of Covenant on the Marines that were pinned down, the Spartans were called off to provide support at the relay.
As it was, he wasn't that happy about leaving the Marines without support, but he had to make sacrifices for the mission. He overheard the pilot saying that they were nearing the relay outpost, though it was unnecessary, as it was rather hard to miss the damn thing. As they approached, he saw a large number of Covenant converging on the door, along with one getting shot by who Kain assumed to be Emile. As the Falcon got nearer, he could clearly make out Kat kneeling down trying to work on the door controls, with Emile near her, drawing their fire. Kain leaned out slightly, bring up his DMR, activated the scope, and started firing at the aliens, going for the Grunts first.
The Falcon touched down in the courtyard, and the Spartans piled out, Kain putting away his DMR as he was low on ammo, and pulled out his two pistols, and started moving towards the door, taking down multiple Covenant on the way. When he made it, Kain settled down next to the door, watching Carter and Jorge follow his path of dead bodies, and proceeded to adding more bodies to the pile.
"How is the door going Kat?" Carter asked after he arrived at the door.
"Taking a little longer then I would like Commander. I have cut about halfway through door." Kat replied, working on a panel.
"Ok, Noble team, hold them off until Kat can get the door shut." Carter ordered, then resumed to cutting down the enemies. They spent the next few minutes exchanging fire, the Covenant seemingly endless. One would fall, and five more would come from a Spirit dropship to takes its place. Kain was on his last clips of both pistols, and had run out of ammo for his DMR entirely, and had ditched it in exchange for the assault rifle of a fallen solider. Kain hated the weapon for its severe inaccuracy at range, but was useful for crowd situations, much like the one they were in currently.
Kain was busy reloading his rifle beside Kat when he spotted a slight shimmer behind her. Confused, Kain simply looked at it, until realizing what it was. "Kat!" Kain cried out, and brought the rifle forward to strike at the cloaked Elite, the impact bringing it to the ground. The Elite roared a challenge to Kain as the Spartan dropped the rifle and raised his right hand, curled it into a fist, and brought it into the aliens head, his energy dagger cutting straight through its shield and killing it instantly. He looked back at Kat, who had seen the kill, but before she could say anything, she was prompted into action by Carter, and confirmed she got the door ready to shut. Carter ordered a retreat, and before the team could get it, Kain quickly unclenched his fist, deactivating the energy dagger, grabbed his knife, and then stabbed the dead Elite in the throat.
Once he pulled the knife out, Kain picked up his rifle and turned to see Kat shutting the door, and clicked on his night vision as the room was plunged into darkness. He could see the rest of his team, minus Jun of course, as Carter ordered them to move into the outpost, leaving Emile posted near the doorway leading inside. None seemed to notice the dead Elite with an energy burn going right between the eyes.
They proceeded down a small, dimly-lit hallway, but encountered no hostiles, something that set Kain's nerves on edge. Something he learned from fighting the Covenant, they always left Elites to search the area they were after, while the Grunts and Jackals stood guard with the lowest ranking Elites. Kain was up front; progressing slowly to make sure nothing jumped out at them, but was meet with no resistance still.
Kain turned a corner into another room, and spotted the outline of a single body in the room, lying in front of a terminal. "Control room, go easy Six." Kat spoke up, moving past him. "Noble Six, search that body." Kain nodded in response, and went over to it.
Kain heard shuffling behind him as he kneeled next to the body, and looked over to see what it was, seeing Carter questioning an injured trooper. Kain turned back to the body and began sifting through his pockets for ID, or anything to give them an idea who the man was. "Where's the rest of your unit?" He heard Carter question.
"We got split. I don't think they… It sounded bad over the comms." The solider replied weakly.
"All right, Corporal, stay put. We'll get you a combat surgeon." Carter soothed the injured solider.
"Damn it, plasma damage." Kat swore when she took off a panel off of the terminal.
"Found something." Kain pulled out a small data module from the dead man's pocket, and held it up to Kat.
"I'll take that Six. Not your domain." Kat replied, the acid in her tone quite evident.
"Kat…" Carter looked over at the two when he heard her. Before Kat could reply, Jorge came out from behind a wall.
"I've got a live one here. Come on out, you." Jorge grunted, pulling a small girl out from the shadows, who was attempting to hit the large man, probably hurting herself more then the Spartan, and yelling at him in Hungarian. "It's alright; we are not going to hurt you." Jorge attempted to comfort the girl.
"Jorge…" Carter trailed off again.
"I've got her." Jorge replied. He then placed his gun down, and grabbed the girl's arms, attempting to calm her down. Kain looked back at Kat to check on her progress with the terminal as this went on, and surprised to see her looking back at him, her posture revealing she was uncertain of something. Kain tilted his head at her in confusion, causing her to jolt back to reality, and she quickly looked away back at the terminal, silently thanking whoever designed the MJOLINER suits to cover the wearers face, so that Kain couldn't see her reddening face.
He heard a clang behind him, and whipped around in time to see a Field Marshall class Elite swing at Jorge and the girl with its energy sword, and roar at the rest of the team. Two more Zealots then followed it, dropping in from the ceiling.
"What's your status, over?" Emile questioned over the com.
"We've been engaged, repeat, we have been engaged!" Carter reported urgently over the com. Kain had his rifle out and started firing at one of the Elites as it charged towards Kat with its energy sword. Carter pushed her out of the way, and turned to face the Elite as it charged. Its shields collapsed before it could strike at him, and instead barreled past Kain, knocking him to the ground. The second Zealot grabbed the fallen Spartan by his throat, and then activated its own energy dagger. Kain's eyes widened inside his helmet when he saw the Elites intent, and punched out, not giving his own energy dagger time to activate. The Zealot, unfazed, prepared to stab at the Spartan again, only to have its head meet Kat's boot, who knocked it away as Carter started firing at it with his comrade out of harms way.
Kain rolled away from the Elite, and grabbed a fallen assault rifle that Kat kicked towards him, and brought it up to the three Elites that had gathered at a door, one of them holding the wounded Marine as a shield, who was struggling against their grip, with the girl Jorge had found screaming behind them. The Elites moved down the connecting hallway after a minute of playing stare down, taking their Marine hostage with them. "Six, Five, after them. Two, secure the girl." Carter ordered, and his team jumped into action.
Kain reloaded his assault rifle, as its counter showed only seven bullets, and followed Jorge into the hall, and sealed the door behind them as Jorge threw a flare down the hall in an attempt to flush out the Covenant that were hiding. Kain sprinted in front of Jorge and took cover behind a large crate; taking note of how many Covenant had come out to take shots at them. Jorge had come up behind him and stood behind a stone pillar, his back pressed against the pillar as the Covenant started firing down the hall to where the Spartans were.
"Six, do you have any grenades?" Jorge asked over the whine of plasma weapons.
"A few yes. Are you thinking I use them to thin the opposition?" Kain inquired, half turning to face the large Spartan II.
"Yes, aim for the far wall; they seem to be hanging back for some reason." Jorge reported as he looked out from his cover to take note of enemy position. Kain nodded, put away his assault rifle, and pulled out three fragmentation grenades, pulled the pins, and waited for Jorge to confirm the throw. Jorge waited several seconds for the Covenant to ease on the firing, and then waved for him to throw the grenades. Kain popped out from his cover, and tossed the grenades, launching them over the shields of several Jackals as Jorge came around the pillar and started firing his obscenely large gun, allowing Kain time to take out his assault rifle and fired at them, not really aiming to take out any of them, more for distraction.
The grenades exploded, causing several Grunts to collide with some Jackals as the explosion and the shrapnel killed many of them instantly, the Jackals that were hit by the flying bodies of their comrades where then cut down by the two Spartans, who wasted no time to eliminate them. The fight was over before it ever really began, and the Spartans moved down the one way hall, receiving orders via com channel from Carter to start up the power if they found it, following the path of Covenant resistance, despite it being sparse. Kain and Jorge turned one corner and saw the body of the Marine the Elites had taken hostage; a plasma shot to the neck appeared to be the cause of his death.
Kain knelt next to the body, and took his dog tags, putting them in one of his pouches, as Jorge sent a silent prayer for the solider. Kain stood up, his face solemn inside his helmet, and walked down the hall as it opened up to a large room with moving pillars, several Covenant milling around where visible from the outlines his night vision gave him. Kain pressed himself down against the concrete barrier to prevent others from falling, and was slightly concerned with the numbers he saw. Two Elites, about half a dozen Jackals and an equal number of Grunts, and something told him that the third Elite from earlier was hiding where the power coupling was.
Jorge hung back in the hall, not wanting to alert the enemy of their presence in the room. Kain cut off his helmets audio speakers, and opened up a private channel to Jorge, who did the same. "I count maybe a dozen Covenant on the floor below us, plus the three Elites from earlier." Kain reported, keeping an eye on the ramp that led down to the Covenant.
"What are you thinking about doing, Six?" Jorge asked warily, he had read a few reports about the stunts Kain had pulled on Mamore to take out militia groups, sometimes taking out a whole platoon on guard one after another.
"Nothing extreme, just toss a grenade into their midst, cause a little bit of chaos in their ranks first, see what happens, act accordingly." Kain replied, shrugging silently. Jorge snorted in response.
"And then what? Shoot from up here and let them come up the ramp to flank us?" Jorge asked incredulously.
"No, just stay up here and shoot when targets present themselves." Kain said as he removed the pin from his last grenade, and tossed it into the group of Covenant. Due to the darkness, the Covenant did not see the grenade fly towards them, which sent several of them flying once it exploded, disabling the shields of one of the Elites. Kain popped up, and took aim at the unshielded Elite, and squeezed the trigger of his assault rifle, dropping the Elite almost immediately as the bullets bit into it.
Jorge rushed up to the concrete wall and shot down the disoriented Covenant, dropping most before they could react. Kain discretely crept behind Jorge and down the ramp, holstering his assault rifle and pulling out one of his pistols, and his knife. Hiding in the shadows wearing silver armor wasn't very easy, but he remained out of sight nonetheless as a panicking Grunt ran to the ramp in an attempt to hide from the assault Jorge was raining down on them. Kain stabbed the Grunt in the neck, severing its methane tank from its mask, causing it to spasm at the lack of breathable air and the sudden wound in its neck. Kain quickly stabbed it between the eyes to keep it silent.
The Covenant had finally managed to get some of their act together and started firing at Jorge's position, which earned their flank to be picked off by the second Spartan, who dropped the Jackals immediately, thus allowing Jorge to kill the rest. All that was left was the last Elite who had retreated into the separate room, and had yet to appear again. Kain quickly reloaded his pistol, replaced his knife and took out his second pistol, not wanting to risk his assault rifle causing more damage to the power generator. He approached cautiously, and dove out of the way when the Elite came out of the room with a Concussion rifle, followed by the Field Marshal Elite came out of the room, its energy sword activated, but stayed back, out of range from Jorge's gun.
The other Elite tried to line up another shot, but its aim was pushed off by Jorge shooting at its shields, which depleted itself almost immediately, which earned the Elite two pistol shots to the head from Kain, who stood up and faced the other Elite. The Field Marshal looked at the fallen Elite, then back at the silver Spartan, brought its sword arm across its chest, and bowed its head. "Demon in white, I ask for the honor of single combat with you, as you killed my blood brother. If you kill me, I shall be presented a place among our chosen to guide the others on the Great Journey. If you do not, my honor shall grow amongst my brethren." The Elite spoke, Kain's translator picking up its speech and translating it as best it could.
Kain looked back at Jorge, who seemed hesitant. "Six, don't do it." Jorge warned, his tone filled with worry. Kain looked back at the Elite, and placed his pistols back in their holsters, took out his combat knife, faced the Elite in a combat stance.
"Don't interfere unless I die, Jorge. The one I killed was his brother; I am not going to deny it a fight for its spirit." Kain replied, as he deactivated his shields, nodded to the Elite. The Elite roared, and charged towards the Spartan, who dove underneath its sword swing, and sliced at the Elites leg, cutting its leg slightly, but had to roll backwards before he could attack again as the Elite tried to stab at him. The Elite roared again as it tackled the Spartan to the ground, trying to stab Kain, who twisted out of the way, causing the sword to be impaled in the floor. Kain punched the Elite away, his knife being knocked out of his hands when the Elite charged him to the ground. Kain settled into a martial artist stance, settling for hand-to-hand combat if necessary, as he was certain the Elite wasn't going to let him grab his knife.
The Elite growled at the Spartan, who remained stock still, readying his opponent, and roared as it charged at Kain again, who side-stepped out of the way, grabbed the back of its armor, and threw it back with all of his strength. As the Elite flew away from him, Kain hissed as he felt pain in his arm, and looked down. A cut through his armor and into his skin was evident, and Kain looked back to the Elite, who had both energy daggers active. "Tricky little bastard. Got to give it credit though." Kain thought grimly as he settled into a stance again, this time ready to leap away to his left, as the Elite charged again. It seemed the alien never learned, and always charged headfirst.
Kain deftly rolled to his left, and grabbed the fallen energy sword, activating it and swinging it in the same motion, catching the Elite in the side, nearly severing one of its arms. The Elite stumbled backwards, growling again, in pain this time, as well as defiance. Kain held the sword in front of him, the light illuminating his helmet, casting a ghostly glow over his armor, ready for the Elite, who seemed to be wary now that it was badly wounded. Kain decided to end the fight now, and took two steps towards the Elite, and swung the sword expertly, despite him having little past experience with the weapon, as the Elite backed away, growling at him angrily.
The Elite then sprinted to its dead brother, and grabbed the energy sword that it had, and activated it. It raised its arm diagonally across its chest, its head bowed again, Kain followed suit, if not out of respect. The Elite roared again, and charged, to which Kain responded with by charging as well. They met halfway, energy blades colliding, causing sparks to shoot out. They continued trading blows with the swords, neither scoring a hit on the other, until Kain heard Kat shout in alarm, followed by several pistol shots, which slammed into the Elite, causing it to falter, and fall down. Kain backed away, uncertain if he should end the aliens life.
Kain looked at the alien's eyes, and saw acceptance, an acceptance of its fate, that it had lost, and, despite being a different race and their battle having been interrupted, he saw respect in the Elites eyes. Kain approached slowly, and raised his visor to show his eyes, and looked down at the Elite as Kain raised his sword over the fallen alien. Kain quickly brought it down, killing the Elite swiftly, and pulled the sword out, then lowered his visor again, and looked back at Kat, who had ran down the ramp after she had shot the Elite.
She angrily approached Kain and slapped him upside the head in anger. "What the hell was that Six?! You were supposed to kill it, not play with it!" She demanded, her rage knowing no bounds at this moment.
"We had killed its brother and it wanted to duel with only me. Was I supposed to dishonor it, even if it was an enemy?" Kain retorted, now equally angry, pointing at the body of both Elites behind him.
"What difference does it make?! They are a part of a species trying to commit genocide by killing our race entirely! They couldn't care less about fighting with honor! They are animals!" Kat shouted at him. "And you got hurt in the process! How do you justify that?! Was that for its 'honor' too?!"
"Oh for the love of God, will you listen to yourself? They may be trying to kill us all, but they are still a sentient species! Are you going to start telling me I should kill every wolf I see because they kill deer and too many of them will cause the deer to become extinct?!" Kain asked incredulously.
"Dammit Six, you nearly died because you wanted to satisfy the damn things need for honor! I am not going to let another teammate die if I could do anything to stop it! Why do you need to be so much like him?! We are at war; there is no chance to fight evenly, if you have an advantage, take it! Did you learn nothing when in training or did it all go down the drain after you heard about TORPEDO?!" Kat yelled.
Kain bristled in response, and he leaned towards Kat, his tone low and hostile, "I have never forgotten what I learned in camp Currahee, nor have I ever forgotten what happened during TORPEDO, nor have I forgotten what my friends looked like when I saw the recording of what happened during that damned mission. If you think for one minute that I don't hate every one of those bastards," Kain pointed to the dead Elite as he said this, "Then you don't know a damn thing about me, so stop talking like you do." With that, Kain turned around, and stalked towards the power generator and turned it on, causing the lights to flicker on.
Kat stood in the room, trembling with barely restrained anger, until she too stalked off back to the control room past Jorge, who stood silent at the balcony he had stayed up at. "Katherine…" Jorge said as she passed him, causing her to stop and turn to face him. "What happened to Thom… It wasn't your fault. Kain knew what he was doing, even if I tried to stop it. You didn't need to be so harsh with him."
"Yes I did Jorge…I don't know why I reacted like that, but Six…" She turned to look down at Kain, who was busy gathering his equipment, as well as confiscating one of the energy swords. "Kain is too much like Thom…" Kat uttered, barely above a whisper, although Jorge heard it, and nodded in response. She suppressed tears again, and moved down the now lit hallway quickly. Kain had now gone up the ramp and was approaching Jorge, his wounded arm now wrapped in bandages as best he could after applying bio-foam. Kain watched Kat go and turned to Jorge.
"What did she want?" Kain asked bitterly, still angry at her intervention.
"I… It was nothing Six. We better get back to Noble Leader to report in." Jorge said, walking down the hall, Kain following, albeit reluctantly. They returned to the control room without any problem, and were met with Emile waiting by the main door, the girl near the body Kain had searched earlier, and Carter standing over Kat as she quickly worked on a communications channel, presumably to Holland. Kain stood opposite Emile, taking out his assault rifle, despite the sting in his arm, as Jorge went over to the girl at Carter's orders.
Kain simply tuned out everyone and had several memories go through his mind, unbidden. He vaguely noted Emile explaining something to him with Jorge coming up on him about something, but Kain didn't quite hear them, his mind already in the past, remembering his arguments back in training, the amount of threats of court marshalling Chief Mendez had given him for the arguments, and he wondered how Chief Mendez would react if he saw the argument between Kat and himself a few moments prior.
Kain chuckled silently at his question, the Chief would probably tell them to drop and give him a hundred push ups, fifty curl-ups, another fifty jumping-jacks, run a couple miles, then ask if they still wanted to argue. He saw Kat slap a communicator into Carters hand, and walked out of the room, followed by Jorge and the girl, now named Sára, and Emile. Kain left last, somewhat hesitantly, and followed the rest of the team to the Falcon's, which had landed outside in the courtyard, now free of Covenant, and climbed into a seat next to Jun in the Falcon, sitting across from the source of his latest bout of anger, Kat, who was also looking out the side of the Falcon as Carter came out of the facility and announced that until ONI had more intel, the team was to be on stand-by until further notice, in other words, they were supposed to be at an assigned base to rest while the rest of the Marines fought the Covenant.
The Falcon's lifted off, and flew away to the Spartan's destination; Sára sat beside Jorge on the Falcon with Carter and Emile, and remained quiet, as did the Spartans. Kain holstered his assault rifle, and took off his helmet as the Falcon's flew, allowing the wind to hit his pale face, his hair slightly ruffling in the breeze, his face a look of silent content as he looked out over the beauty of Reach and remembered times long past. Across from him, Kat found herself staring at his face, the face that looked so much like Thom's, and yet, was so different. She mentally shook herself as memories of her dead comrade brought themselves up, and remained equally as silent as the Spartan across from her, both lost in memories of the past.
-End recording
This is all that has been recovered so far, a team is still trying to piece together the other video fragments for filing. The next report I will send will be a documented debriefing of the Spartan Noble Team, as well as reports of what occurred during their time on stand-by.
Wingsofhermes, signing off
-End transmission
